What did smaller soldiers do?

Offhand McFlan said:

Here's a good one for all! ....

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It looks to me like it's the shortest guys that have the longest rifles.

Altho Soviet women can be pretty stout, most were not..

Just teasing.

-kBob

My grandpa was around 5'5", smaller framed and was in the Army. He was a mechanic, specifically for bomber turret guns and I'm guessing his size had something to do with that. He was stationed in Italy so far behind the lines I'm not sure if he was ever issued a firearm, the only action he saw was in the boat ride over when some German planes flew over them and he helped man one of the anti-aircraft guns. He said the plane his crew was shooting at crashed into the ocean, but so many guns were shooting at just a handful of planes he doesn't know for sure if they were the ones to bring it down or not.

He also used to tell a funny story on the ship when a bad storm came, and one of the officers told him to guard a door to make sure nobody went outside. Well Grandpa was hanging on for dear life with the ship swaying and rain blasting him, and eventually the door popped open and that same officer screamed "You damned fool, you're supposed to guard the door from the INSIDE!"

I have a buddy who was in the marines in the mid 2000's, he's around 5'5". He was on the machine gun crew carrying the extra ammo. He tells a story during training where they were out loaded up and needed to jump a small ravine. A guy on a different machine gun crew, who was over 6' and fairly muscular jumped and broke his ankle and my buddy was like "how the heck am I supposed to do this stuff if that big guy can't?"

What did smaller soldiers do? From c. 1930 to c. 1947, get transferred to the AAF, and assigned as ball turret gunners. Circa 1966 to 1975 Sent to II Corps, handed a .45 and a flashlight, and sent down tunnels. From what is saw c. 1986-89 at Ft. Ord, , get assigned to mortar and TOW units to carry the tube.

Simo Häyhä, was 5'3", used a Finnish M28, not a short rifle by any means, to good effect.

First I got to say I love the picture of the little dude with the Garand clips stuck on his suspenders and rifle sling. That's the way you do it!

But speaking of Soldier size, this shook loose a -kBob Story from the file of "A Sargent in Motion out ranks a Stationary Butter Bar"

Size of course matters. At 6'2" and only a pound or two under the limit for a "Lightweapons Infantryman" I was not the subject of this topic.

The day after I had demonstrated that for another quarter I was top shot in my Platoon and either that or second in the company, I was standing guard like a good Pee Eff Sea when an E6 came around with the new "week old" 2LT that just "took over" our platoon. Having studdied the platoon fitness files, he chose to over look the no PT score on all events (what was worse the perverted crawl or the run dodge the fence and jump face first in the ditch?) lower than 81 ( 60 was passing and good enough) and focus on the yellow marker around my weight...still passing but might not want to drink another glass of water on the way to weigh in.

He announced "You sure can shoot, but if the Russians show up we might have to leave your fat a** behind"

I considered pointing out that my two mile run was actually faster than half the platoon but for once ( maybe in my entire life) did not snap back something "smart"

The Sargent (who had known me more like a year rather than a week) chuckled and said "Hell, El Tea, the way he shoots if he can't keep up you are going to carry his "fat A**"

I will say that more than once, as a big guy, it was ASSUMED ( you vets know what Assume makes) I could carry more than the little Duck Butts. One raining evening in particular comes to mind when standing in the rain with a poncho over my personal gear, a dougnut roll of wire, an old AN PVS2 Starlight in a soft bag, a field phone and a "fifty can" full of spare water while balancing a M67 90 mm recoiless over my shoulders and a new E5 thought I should carry a injured guy's LBE and Pack....and he had no squad or platoon gear on his sorry behind. Same old E6 from above helped him into the LBE and asked if I was tired of carrying the emergency water. Good NCO's are better than gold or even hot chow.

-kBob

kBob, when you mentioned the "low crawl", I broke out into a cold sweat. I did Basic, back in November 1965, at Fort Gordon. At that time the max on the PT Test, was 500. The "low crawl" dropped my score to 426.

Speaking of little guys, there was a guy in our Company that had arms like "Grover". He couldn't lift his footlocker on his bunk. He was last in everything. Which made the rest of our platoon pay the price. While in Signal School, saw one of my Basic friends and asked, did he know what ever happened to "Grover". He stated that "Grover's" orders were Fort Benning, Advanced Infantry Training. I often wonder how he made out, because Fort Benning was the prelude to Viet Nam.

My Maternal Grandfather was 5’6”, he spent the war on Kodiak Island in the USMC. He was assigned an M1 Garand and never had anything bad to say about carrying or firing it. Initially he was to land on Kiska, but his unit was in the reserve and when the invasion revealed no Japanese were still there they weren’t needed.

He did say the Garand and the .30 Caliber ammo it fired didn’t inspire a lot of confidence when he or his mates were standing guard over the others as they fished for salmon in the same streams as the native bears were. He told me some of those beasts were awe-inspiring in size

He never did see combat, as he stayed garrisoned in Alaska waiting for the Japanese island-hopping campaign that never materialized after Attu and Kiska.

My Dad’s Uncle volunteered for the Army in his 40’s after Pearl Harbor was attacked. He talked his way in saying he could handle any chore the Army threw at him, passed his physical and boot camp with the nickname “Pops”, then was assigned as a clerk shuffling paper at a supply depot outside Philadelphia. He mustered out in 1965, then went into police work for 20 years retiring just before turning 70. (Ironically my Dad served at a later depot in Philly as a 2nd Lt in the early 1960’s.) My Great Uncle stood roughly 5’5”, but he died when I was about 12 so I don't recall hearing any stories about his service.

My wife’s Grandfather was another shorter guy, he stood maybe 5’7” in boots. He was a pilot and after Pearl he volunteered for the AAF but had some sort of DQ for combat. Instead they made him a lead ferry pilot for a team flying single-engine planes to the West Coast. (He said he flew Wildcats, Avengers, Dauntless, Mustangs, Thunderbolts and Hellcats over the course of his war). Most of his peers were WASP’s who also flew planes to support the war efforts.

Shorter folks just made due I guess.

Stay safe.

This kid, and I really mean kid, was 14 years old in this picture, humping that .50.


He lied about his age, and flew 6 B24 missions over Germany before they discovered his true age. Sgt. De Salas Glover: https://www.mountainway.org/post/aerial-gunner-retires-at-age-16

Rembrandt said:

A lot of the smaller framed individuals were assigned as bomber ball turret gunners, even being small in size there wasn't enough room to wear a parachute in the ball turret.

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I think I would have happily humped a BAR 20 miles a day rather than squeeze myself into that horrible thing

There is a lot of good information here. In 1930's and 1940's people were not only smaller they were much thinner. Fat people were uncommon when I was a kid. Also most people did manual labor and half the population then lived on on worked on farms. People were in much better shape in the whole and accustomed to hard work. Many smaller people were expected to do the same work as bigger people and they did. Your body adapts especially when you are young. Your frame as well as muscles are stronger. You can get used to a bigger rifle pretty easy. I was thin but strong and athletic. I had no issues with an M-60 or M-14. When we switched to M-16's they felt like toys at first but they felt normal shortly. I have also seen small guys beat the crap out of big guys. If you have never had to do very hard labor you don't know what you are capable of.

They found a fair number of younger soldiers went through growth spurts since Army chow was a big improvement over grits and gruel, coarse bred and other Depression era fare.

Shoot I gained weight in Basic and AIT and my first unit LONG time after the depression.

Despite the horror stories in my memories of Mess Hall food was always pretty good.

Now sometimes C-rats or even MREs....

-kBob

In my experience, the quality of the food was never bad, it was just the lack of variety and imagination on the parts of the cooking staff that made the menu very bland and unimaginative.

For MCIs and MREs, that goes triple as there were only 12 different choices.

Phrog Driver said:

A tougher breed went before us. Thank God.

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My grandad was drafted in WWII, and assigned to the Army Air Corps. He stood 6'3". I don't know what he weighed, but it wasn't much. When he reported to basic, he had a 27" waist. They offered to let him go home, he wouldn't. For the first three days he basically did not participate until some uniforms could be made for him. He gained weight in basic training because it was the first time in his life he had ever had three square meals a day. He told me that he'd rather take his chances with the war effort than for people back home in Cherokee County to think he was a 4F.

lysanderxiii said:

In my experience, the quality of the food was never bad, it was just the lack of variety and imagination on the parts of the cooking staff that made the menu very bland and unimaginative.

For MCIs and MREs, that goes triple as there were only 12 different choices.

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Yeah, the variety was a bit lacking. For example, while in Korea, we had steak and lobster tail every Friday. Can you believe that? Same meal every Friday.

Hokkmike said:

I am 5' 5" and have little hands. Had I been in WWII instead of being a Viet Nam era serviceman (never went there to be clear) I do not think I could have wielded an M-1 Garand very well at all. So, did they make accommodation with other equipment or did the GI just have to tough it out and deal with an oversized arm for his size? (I suspect that this is probably the case)

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When I was an Adviser ('66-'67) the ARVN standard rifle was the M1 -- and you would be average size for a Viet Namese. They managed that rifle quite well.

kBob said:

Shoot I gained weight in Basic and AIT and my first unit LONG time after the depression.

Despite the horror stories in my memories of Mess Hall food was always pretty good.

Now sometimes C-rats or even MREs....

-kBob

Click to expand...

My too. I gained about 30 lbs. I lost it all in Nam.

My grandfather was fairly tall, about 5-11 to 6 foot, but had a small frame. He was about 140-150 pounds. He always liked to tell this story:

In WW2 he was in the Army Air Corps as a base security guard. During the train up to deploy to India and Burma they did a couple weeks of firearms training. My grandfather was a good shot and shot all very well. Just before they were to deploy they had to qualify on the different guns and the "best" gun you could qualify with was what you were to be issued. My grandfather really liked the M1 Carbine the most and that's what he wanted to carry. He didn't like the weight of the M1 Garand. So he qualified on the 1911, the shotgun, the Thompson, and the M1 Carbine. When it came time to qual on the M1 Garand my grandfather purposely turned the windage dial off just a little bit so he would not qual. Well his Captain just so happened to be standing behind him on the firing line and watched the whole thing go down. The Captain knew he could shoot and as punishment issued my grandfather a M1 Garand, a M1 Carbine, a shotgun, and a 1911.

kBob said:

First I got to say I love the picture of the little dude with the Garand clips stuck on his suspenders and rifle sling. That's the way you do it!

But speaking of Soldier size, this shook loose a -kBob Story from the file of "A Sargent in Motion out ranks a Stationary Butter Bar"

Size of course matters. At 6'2" and only a pound or two under the limit for a "Lightweapons Infantryman" I was not the subject of this topic.

The day after I had demonstrated that for another quarter I was top shot in my Platoon and either that or second in the company, I was standing guard like a good Pee Eff Sea when an E6 came around with the new "week old" 2LT that just "took over" our platoon. Having studdied the platoon fitness files, he chose to over look the no PT score on all events (what was worse the perverted crawl or the run dodge the fence and jump face first in the ditch?) lower than 81 ( 60 was passing and good enough) and focus on the yellow marker around my weight...still passing but might not want to drink another glass of water on the way to weigh in.

He announced "You sure can shoot, but if the Russians show up we might have to leave your fat a** behind"

I considered pointing out that my two mile run was actually faster than half the platoon but for once ( maybe in my entire life) did not snap back something "smart"

The Sargent (who had known me more like a year rather than a week) chuckled and said "Hell, El Tea, the way he shoots if he can't keep up you are going to carry his "fat A**"

I will say that more than once, as a big guy, it was ASSUMED ( you vets know what Assume makes) I could carry more than the little Duck Butts. One raining evening in particular comes to mind when standing in the rain with a poncho over my personal gear, a dougnut roll of wire, an old AN PVS2 Starlight in a soft bag, a field phone and a "fifty can" full of spare water while balancing a M67 90 mm recoiless over my shoulders and a new E5 thought I should carry a injured guy's LBE and Pack....and he had no squad or platoon gear on his sorry behind. Same old E6 from above helped him into the LBE and asked if I was tired of carrying the emergency water. Good NCO's are better than gold or even hot chow.

-kBob

Click to expand...

I was also a "big guy". Im 6' 02" and most of my enlistment I hovered around 205-210 pounds. I was a machine gunner but also shot well enough that I was made a Designated Marksman for my second tour in Iraq, Being a mechanized unit we didn't carry the bigger machineguns dismounted and that was when I would use my SDM-R. When we were out patrolling in Humvees is when I would have my 240B.

Though during the invasion of Iraq I was a SAW gunner and a Javelin gunner in our heavy weapons squad. Being the only Private in the squad I always ended up being the tunnel rat when we would come across Iraqi bunkers. Throw a few frag grenades in and then I got the pleasure of crawling in with my Ontario Spec Plus knife I bought at the PX.

Being something like 20 pounds over the weight limit I would always require a tape measurement during PT tests. However I never actually got measured. As soon as I would get in line to be measured the Staff Sergeant running the tape testing would look at me and say "get the f**k out of my line". HAHAHA. I would always max the push ups and sit ups and then score around 90 percent on the run. Never was a fast runner.

Here is me being too fat for the Army, with my SDM-R and my M240B.

240 by chase, on Flickr

kBob said:

Shoot I gained weight in Basic and AIT and my first unit LONG time after the depression.

Despite the horror stories in my memories of Mess Hall food was always pretty good.

Now sometimes C-rats or even MREs....

-kBob

Click to expand...

FWIW, I gained about 10 pounds in basic, and the jeans I showed up wearing to Ft Benning didn't fit any more when I got them back at the end- I had to go to the PX and buy a couple more pairs when I started jump school. And believe it of not, my run time was slightly SLOWER at the end of basic than when I reported. I was a wrestler and ran cross country before I enlisted; being forced to run for 13 weeks at a slower pace than my "normal" in formation actually messed up my running, but I was able to get it back later. My 2 mile time went from mid/high- 11's to mid 12's. Everyone's experience was different.

Hokkmike said:

I am 5' 5" and have little hands. Had I been in WWII instead of being a Viet Nam era serviceman (never went there to be clear) I do not think I could have wielded an M-1 Garand very well at all. So, did they make accommodation with other equipment or did the GI just have to tough it out and deal with an oversized arm for his size? (I suspect that this is probably the case)

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I think they just dealt with it.

the average dude back then was smaller and the stocks on the M1 fit my scrawny 135lb 5' 8" self just fine.

C-grunt said:

Here is me being too fat for the Army, with my SDM-R and my M240B.

View attachment 983727240 by chase, on Flickr

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Reminds me of one memorable Saturday afternoon. We had a battalion competition, in which I anchored the M113 track pull as well as a tug of war. I was also one of the four selected to pull the CO in a Jeep trailer chariot race. Then I was pretty well bloodied in Combat push ball. We won every event that day, whooping the rest of the companies in the battalion.

After the awards were handed out (no participation trophies ), the First Sgt. came up to me and said "Congratulations, Sgt. Sistema, you really came through for us. By the way, report to the orderly room Monday morning, they changed the weight standards, and based on your last weigh in you would be 2 lbs. over."

For the rest of that weekend I starved, but stood on the scales on Monday and was 2 under the new limit.

This is one of the many things that puzzled me during my service. What was more important, an arbitrary number on a chart, or the ability to pull my weight?

Most of the WWII soldiers grew up in the Great Depression. They grew up making due with what they had. Baby boomers were raised by these same people and taught to adapt when possible because there may be a time when you would have to. I'm pretty sure if someone was shooting at me I would figure out a way to use what ever I have. Try being Left handed